The protests highlight the difficulties in embracing Chinese investment while defending Vietnamese independence.
- Tom Fawthrop
- The Diplomat
The huge nationwide protests that rocked Vietnam last week have highlighted Hanoi’s headaches in dealing with China, both as a hostile power in the South China Sea and as a key trading partner and economic investor.
The history of Vietnam-China relations is steeped in a thousand years of Chinese colonization, conflict, and rebellion.
The last Chinese invasion was a two-month border war in 1979.
The recent protests centered on the Special Zone Act, a…